Presale/General Sale Discussion - Australia/New Zealand

[d.darroch]

Thanks mrnathan15.

Do you usually get pretty good tickets through fanclub presale or does it work the same way as a general presale - ie: securing tickets which are not necessarily any better than you could get during the general sales??

I heard of quite a few people buying premium seats in the US presale, & being situated behind a CLAW leg. I actually did a bit of research myself, just selecting a price range, & seeing where these seats would be located. Kept ending up with horrible seats behind a rear CLAW leg

So I don't think the seats available in the presale are any better than the general sale, but it's much more convenient. So if you're unhappy with the selection you're given, you can always deny the seats, & try again. I'd be too afraid to do that in the general sale. The biggest advantage in using the presale is definitely when buying GA's.

It will be interesting to see how much control we are give when selecting seats. Whether it's just going to be "Select a Price Range", & that's it. Or whether we'll be able to select "Upper/Lower Tiers" of the stadiums, & "North/South/East/West Stands". This was the case for some US shows, but not all. It's especially useful for those wanting to be on Edge's side (or for those with a preference for Adam), & for those wanting medium price or cheap tickets, who want control over whether they are situated at the far end of the stadium, or behind the stage.

Might go & have a play around with Bon Jovi tickets, & maybe a few others, to see how the sites are working

 

[d.darroch]

Might go & have a play around with Bon Jovi tickets, & maybe a few others, to see how the sites are working

Checked Bon Jovi, Riannah & Metallica on Ticketek. Only Riannah gave any control to select rear or side seating, bugger.

People in the US complain about ticket fees, but jeez Ticketek is bad. $16 for regular mail, & $14 just to print out an Ezy Ticket robbery!

 

[ramblin rose]

Checked Bon Jovi, Riannah & Metallica on Ticketek. Only Riannah gave any control to select rear or side seating, bugger.

People in the US complain about ticket fees, but jeez Ticketek is bad. $16 for regular mail, & $14 just to print out an Ezy Ticket robbery!

Will Ticketek ship outside the country?

 

[d.darroch]

yep, looks like they will.

From their FAQ at Ticketek Australia,

Can I buy tickets if I am based overseas?
Yes, anyone can become a My Ticketek member and buy tickets no matter which country you are located in.

Please note: The My Ticketek member must be the credit card holder when booking tickets online.

How do I get my ticket?
When booking from overseas, we recommend you choose either of the delivery options below when they are available:
ezyTicket – your ticket is emailed to you in PDF format.
Venue/City Box Office – collect tickets when you arrive in Australia. To find out more about ticket collection points click here.
Ticketek is unable to guarantee ticket delivery by mail to overseas addresses due to the risk of post being lost in transit.

Please note: Registered Mail cannot be traced for any tickets posted outside of Australia. Only the credit card holder is permitted to purchase and collect tickets. Photo ID and the credit card used to make the booking must be presented when collecting tickets.

I would still like my tickets mailed to me at my overseas address, is this possible?
Yes, however Ticketek is unable to guarantee ticket delivery by mail to overseas addresses due to the risk of post being lost in transit.

Please allow a longer delivery time-frame than the standard 14 working days within Australia.

Please note: General Admission tickets may not be able to be replaced if lost in transit

The very last line looks a bit scary

 

[ramblin rose]

Yeah it does sound scary. I'm trying to remember how I got my GA tickets in 2006. I could swear that they were mailed to me. I know I had hard tickets and I don't remember going to willcall.

 

[wendynz]

Please note: General Admission tickets may not be able to be replaced if lost in transit

The very last line looks a bit scary

It does look scary but if you are purchasing overseas it may pay to get the PDF version of the ticket.

 

[Purplereign]

Really stupid question (ticket buying anxiety has completely frozen any rational thought processes ) . . . my printer has just shat itself so is there a way to download the tickets and 'save' them for printing later? If not I'll just have to get them mailed I guess . . . and wtf . . .$18 purchasing charges . . . what the bloody hell is that?

 

[d.darroch]

Really stupid question (ticket buying anxiety has completely frozen any rational thought processes ) . . . my printer has just shat itself so is there a way to download the tickets and 'save' them for printing later? If not I'll just have to get them mailed I guess . . . and wtf . . .$18 purchasing charges . . . what the bloody hell is that?

Yeah, with the Ezy Ticket (e-ticket) option, Ticketek will send a .pdf file version of the ticket to the email address that you've supplied. So you can print it at your convenience.

Note that in the US, there was no e-ticket option for GA tickets. GA's had to be mailed or Will Call. Guess this was to stop scalpers from printing off heaps of copies of the same ticket & selling them. Not sure what the policy will be for Oz.

 

[Purplereign]

^ cheers . . . you certainly are a wealth of ticket buying information

 

[d.darroch]

^ you should have seen the rigors I went through for the US sales (some pre- & some general).

Sign up to My Live Nation, Ticketmaster, My Ticketmaster, Smithstix etc. Research on interference, @u2, & u2.com (if I have to). Have a few practice runs of buying tickets on the relevant ticket selling websites, be familiar. (Here's a great hint for Ticketmaster: for the security check, it's not case sensitive, & more importantly, you can IGNORE any words that contain symbols or numbers. Just enter the other word, saves valuable seconds). Have CC info, billing address & shipping address stored on ticketseller's websites if possible. Add all relevant websites to IE favourites (including the actual event page you're planning on attending - as this page may crash during the sale. Print out a copy of the relevant seating chart. Set your computer clock accurately with a site like timeanddate.com (I guess it's accurate as Ticketmaster appears to run it's times in line with this site).

On sales day,
Have all relevant web pages open in plenty of time. (Another hint: most of the ticket selling websites will not allow you to carry out 2 simultaneous purchases on IE. But they will allow you to carry out 2 purchases if one's on IE & the other's on Firefox - so I always have both IE & Firefox open at the relevant sites, even if I'm only making 1 purchase, just as backup).
Open timeanddate.com, for the relevant city. At exactly 3-4 seconds after the sale is to begin, refresh the event page, it should have changed from "Tickets Not Available" to the "Box Office" page. Now go for it!

OK, it's a bit overboard, but for 360 NA, I was successful in optaining GA's for all shows I attempted. Even for extremely high demand shows like Vegas & the Rosebowl in the general sales (although I'd already purchase tickets for these shows in the presale).

 

[ramblin rose]

You're making me very nervous.

 

[dan_smee]

Advice: I am going with my fiance, my brother and his girlfriend, and my parents to the Sydney show. Seated. Can't use presale because I only have 4 tickets pre-sale.

I want to go to a standing show as well.

Should I fly to another city and use my presale for a show there, or is the chance of a 2nd sydney show great enough that I should hold out and go to it (2nd shows are always more interesting!)

 

[Purplereign]

^^
and ditto to nerves


^ not that I'm an expert but I'd hang onto your presale codes for second sydney show for sure

 

[Acrobat Angel]

So with the presales tomorrow, how quickly would the GA allocation be exhausted? It starts at 11am and I probably won't be able to get on until 4pm (unless I take the day off ) - Do I have any chance of getting 2 x GA's at 4pm?

 

[d.darroch]

You're making me very nervous.

^^
and ditto to nerves

 

[d.darroch]

So with the presales tomorrow, how quickly would the GA allocation be exhausted? It starts at 11am and I probably won't be able to get on until 4pm (unless I take the day off ) - Do I have any chance of getting 2 x GA's at 4pm?

Again, just from US experience, this was very, very dependant on demand. GA's for Vegas were exhausted in some groups within minutes (I think it was maybe less than 2-3 minutes for Boots), while shows like Phoenix still had GA's for days.

I'm thinking that 4pm would be pushing it for the higher demand shows. Though hopefully then 2nd shows will be announced, & more presales.

 

[d.darroch]

Has there been any precedent, where the 2nd show to be announced for a city precedes the 1st show? I'm thinking Sydney, Sunday 12th Dec. Just seems so weird that Perth is the only city with a weekend show.

I'm really just praying for a weekend date for friends

 

[jarradhedley]

So what do people think, do you think the 2nd show will go straight on sale after the 1st one sells fast. Or do u think like last time they will wait to put the 2nd one on sale and give a few days to do a pre sale???

Any1 found any info that relates the ticket prices to seating locations yet? i am curious to know where each category places you in Etihad Stadium.

 

[mrnathan15]

So what do people think, do you think the 2nd show will go straight on sale after the 1st one sells fast. Or do u think like last time they will wait to put the 2nd one on sale and give a few days to do a pre sale???

Any1 found any info that relates the ticket prices to seating locations yet? i am curious to know where each category places you in Etihad Stadium.

Nothing yet unfortunately, which obviously is quite frustrating that we don't have a detailed seating plan considering the first tickets go on sale tomorrow in the presale.

As for when the second shows will start selling I have no idea but it seems for every concert tour here in Aus it always seems to vary between the two options you stated.

 

[d.darroch]

Any1 found any info that relates the ticket prices to seating locations yet? i am curious to know where each category places you in Etihad Stadium.

Nothing yet unfortunately, which obviously is quite frustrating that we don't have a detailed seating plan considering the first tickets go on sale tomorrow in the presale.

For previous legs, it was very rare to actually get a seating chart showing the different pricing levels (Paris & Amsterdam are the only places I can remember seeing pricing info for). The current Etihad diagram is pretty much what an average seating plan looked like for the NA legs (except that the bays were all numbered).
Here's the seating plan for Soldier Field currently on sale. This is pretty much the norm, no pricing advice.

The only thing I could say is select the price you want to pay, & it will only give you the option of choosing a tiers associated with price. If you're very lucky it'll give you the option of choosing the north/south/east/west stand, so you can choose to be on Edge's/Adam's side, or front/back stage (I only saw a few shows with this option though).

Back for the 1st NA leg, I did quite a bit of reseach during the presales for the Vegas & Rosebowl shows. Just to help out anyone in the general sales, & for others with future sales. They're pretty accurate, & may give you some idea (a lot of work, yes I'm pretty nuts). These diagrams may help with the general idea.

Here's the Rose Bowl diagram (Can't find the Vegas 1, it's in the Vegas thread somewhere).

It's TOTALLY ANNOYING, pretty much going in blind! The only other advice I could offer, if we don't get accurate seating plans (with prices), is to have a play around on US Ticketmaster site here Tickets for Concerts, Sports, Arts, Theater, Family, Events, more. Official Ticketmaster site, & get a general idea about were the different price levels will put you. Generally sides near the field were expensive, front & rears were mid to cheap.

 

[mrnathan15]

Links to the ticket buying pages are up on u2.com! Not a super development but boy it gets you excited!

And yeah d.darroch judging by what you researched on the US shows I know what you mean by each seating bay etc not being classified as a specific price option.

Anyway that didn't make much sense but great work mate you've really done some strong research it seems and passed on your advice. Cheers!

 

[Acrobat Angel]

Again, just from US experience, this was very, very dependant on demand. GA's for Vegas were exhausted in some groups within minutes (I think it was maybe less than 2-3 minutes for Boots), while shows like Phoenix still had GA's for days.

I'm thinking that 4pm would be pushing it for the higher demand shows. Though hopefully then 2nd shows will be announced, & more presales.

Thanks for your help. I assume Sydney is going to be popular so I don't think I can risk missing out on GA's. Looks like I'm chucking a sickie tomorrow!

 

[ramblin rose]

d.darroch, thank you very much for sharing all of your research and experience with the group, it's much appreciated.

btw, it looks like they will be selling rz in the presale. At least it's on the list of tickets available from the u2.com link.

 

[Sken]

I have been a U2.com member for over a year now and haven't received an email with my codes yet. Should I be worried, or are there other people still waiting?

 

[philly80]

Ok - so presale tickets for sydney shows we go through ticketek right?

 

[Acrobat Angel]

I have been a U2.com member for over a year now and haven't received an email with my codes yet. Should I be worried, or are there other people still waiting?

I think you just log into U2.com, click on 'account info' at the top right hand corner and your code(s) should appear on the left hand side with your user information. If not, log in and click on 'New Zealand/Australia Presale Info Here' in the top right hand corner and you should find them there.

Ok - so presale tickets for sydney shows we go through ticketek right?

Yep, that's correct.

 

[AndrewCowley]

I've read the FAQ on u2.com and the rules for people with multiple codes still isn't clear to me. I have 2 codes. Say I use one of them to purchase 4 tickets for the Sydney show. Can I then use the other code to buy tickets (4 max) for another show?

 

[vvswhits]

yes, you can use your first code to buy 4 tickets for 1 show, then your other code to buy another 4 for another show, or you could buy 8 tickets for 1 show only, but you have to do that in 2 different transactions.

what I'm worried and unsure about is that I only want to buy 4 tickets for the second sydney show (presuming there will be one) but I don't know when that is likely to go on sale...

 

[mrnathan15]

I've read the FAQ on u2.com and the rules for people with multiple codes still isn't clear to me. I have 2 codes. Say I use one of them to purchase 4 tickets for the Sydney show. Can I then use the other code to buy tickets (4 max) for another show?

Another Sydney show? Well on the ticketek site (when accessed via the pre sale page on u2.com) has this

"TICKET LIMIT: 4 ticket per city per member"

So I don't know whether that means for the intital show you can buy 4 tickets in the first presale, then use your other code for the next show. (ie 8 per that city) or whether you can't use presale codes for that particular city after your allotted 4? It's very confusing as we all already know very well!

 

[AndrewCowley]

We don't even know if 2nd shows will get a pre-sale. Chances are perhaps not.